Washington - Barack Obama's foreign policy and national security appointments - Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Robert Gates as defense secretary and James Jones as national security adviser - have won praise from the moderate center of the Democratic

By: Richard Owen Venice: Sirens sounded across Venice yesterday as flooding submerged 95 per cent of the city and left tourists in St Mark's Square thigh-deep in water.

Beirut - Hezbollah on Tuesday labeled its ally Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun as the top Representative of Christians in Lebanon and "the Arab orient."

Beirut - Lebanese President Michel Suleiman headed to Germany today for two-day official visit. He is expected to discuss with his German counterpart Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel political and security issues, as well as Lebanon's financial debt, according

Beirut - Lebanese students have demonstrated in Beirut against the Israeli blockade of Gaza strip

Beirut- Saudi Arabia has protested against verbal attacks on the kingdom and Western diplomats advised Lebanon to stay out of this crisis to avoid turning Lebanon into an arena for Syrian-Saudi conflict.

Beirut- The UN International Commission probing the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Tuesday reported acquiring "new information that may allow it to link additional individuals to the network that carried out the assassination."

Washington - U.S. intelligence agencies warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack "from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai," a U.S. intelligence official tells ABC News

Beirut - Lebanese Troops on Tuesday arrested a member of the Syrian Social National Party who had threatened a checkpoint in Beirut with a weapon, witnesses reported.

Sawaneh- In 2006, shortly after Israel ended its 33-day war against Lebanon, 9-year-old Hussein Sultan and his best friend Hassan stepped on a cluster bomb while playing in the backyard of his home in the southern Lebanese village of Sawaneh.

Leaving the news conference in Chicago yesterday where he introduced his national security team, President-elect Barack Obama strolled out of the room arm in arm with his choice for secretary of state and onetime rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The gesture

Thousands of people attend funerals in Israel for Jewish and Israeli victims of the Mumbai attacks.

The UN body investigating the killing of Lebanese ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri says fresh evidence could help identify new suspects.